What in God’s name happened to our Church under the last two popes? John XXIII opened the doors to an enlivened, 21st Century Church and John Paul II and the even scarier Benedict shut the door.

Then I watch EWTN Network and they are promoting Romney for President who belongs to the cult of Mormonism and the Church backs this guy?

After being a President of Parish Council, a religious teacher a member of the social action arm of the Dioceses in the Southern Region of the Cleveland Diocese, and a president of a social concerns committee that gave Christ relevance in my life and many, many others the church has moved to a right-wing fundamentalist wing that most Catholics do not agree with as witnessed by the exit polls on Catholics and who they voted for. Who in fact is the Church? Old white men who have protected the pedophile priests that ran reckless destroying people’s lives?

I used to be proud to say I am a Catholic. Now, I find it embarrassing. Evidently, the Pope missed the biblical passage of Christ getting up to read from the Book of Isaiah to his own people, in effect Jesus’ mission statement, and promptly being thrown out of his own town. This is what the Church as done to the Christ of social justice.

EWTN looks like a right-wing fundamentalist evangelical TV show in th emold of Rex Humbard or one of those other nut cases. Catholic teaching at one time used the power of the brain and not the buul crap I witness on these broadcasts.

Patrick Carano
Tallmadge, Ohio

Answer by Richard Geraghty on 11/11/2012:

Dear Patrick,

It seems that you have taken your inspiration as a Catholic from the social justice group quite prevalent in the Church today. But that puts you in opposition to the Pope as the Vicar of Christ on earth. Otherwise you could not have spoken of the last two Popes as closing the door on the teachings of Christ. I do not think that this position, although embraced by many Catholic institutions, clerical and lay alike, is a very good thing. It equates being a loyal sheep in the flock of Christ is equivalent to being a religious fundamentalist. How can that be? Is or is it not that that the Pope is the Vicar of Christ on earth? Is this a matter of truth upon which the salvation of our souls depends? Or is it just a matter of opinion? Think it over.